Van Helsinki: One Night
by nototter
Summary: A case in Van's life, told in flashes.


Van sat down at the table, careful not to bump his right arm in its sling. His two 'associates' sat down opposite, though Van didn't trust them at all. Within a few minutes, they had proven every suspicion of his right. They looked shifty, kept very obviously looking over to where Van suspected their hired killer was standing, and all in all seemed to be purely stalling for time. Van wasn't worried – he had outgrown death a while back, somewhere between the relentless gunfights, the never-ending nights, the tongue-lashing from the Inspector, and the passion in Sophia's arms. Van watched as one of the two dealers opposite him made a motion with his left hand. To a normal bystander, it would have been a twitch. To Van, it was practically semaphore. As the hired killer started forward, Van caught sight of the man, reflected in a glass bowl being carried past by a waiter. As he had suspected, the man was not well armed, not in the least subtle, and was trying, unsuccessfully, to conceal what was probably an AKS-74u gun under his jacket. Van snorted. The two men looked at him, terrified that he had guessed something was up, he assumed. Van decided the time for games was over. He raised his left arm, which he had kept under the table. In it, he held a MAC10 submachine gun. Both dealers went white. Van looked straight at them. Then, suddenly, he swivelled round and fired a burst at the approaching assassin. The man went down, clearly dead. Van calmly turned his chair back to the pair of quaking arms dealers. They were only too eager to help him after that.

Van stood outside the door. He handed the Masterkey shotgun off to Professor Ford beside him. She pumped the weapon, then gave it back. Van turned to his little 'squad'.

'Shall we?' And with that, he raised the shotgun, blew the lock off the hinges, and stepped into the room. Van used his chest and his one good hand to pump the shotgun again, twirled it round, and blew the first man to rush him onto the ground, dead. He threw the weapon aside, and drew the MPK submachine gun from his back pocket, where he had stashed it. Van opened fire with the gun one-handed, spraying around the apartment block and taking out the rest of the assailants. Ford walked in afterwards. The only mopping up of the survivors needed was to mop up their blood – several had been injured during Van's spray-and-pray session. Ford didn't need much pressure to get one to talk.

It was perhaps 3.00 in the morning. Van rubbed his eyes with his good hand. His right arm was beginning to throb again. Van wasn't convinced the painkillers were doing much. Ford looked worriedly at him. Van turned to her, her big eyes full of concern, and half-smiled. She seemed to take that as an 'all's well', and turned around, her flashlight lighting up the corners of the long alley they stood in. Van coughed in the cold night air, and walked forward. He peered into the gloom, then turned back to Ford, a few paces behind.

'Over here'. She shone the torch, and Van saw what he had suspected, a red trail leading into one of the half-open garages. Van walked forward, pulling out a Magnum revolver with a short barrel from his hip holster, and following the trail. He didn't have to look far.

'You shot them! Four of them. And a further three in hospital. We said no lethal force Van! We agreed!' Van smiled.

'I shot the enemy. I shot four terrorists who would have been happy to shoot me. I shot first. I'm still standing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's all that matters.' The Inspector seemed about to to boil over, but he suddenly seemed to control himself.

'You can't keep shooting people, Van. But…you did get the job done. Ford testifies to that. I think she's rather fond of you'. Van spat into the Inspector's bin, and said nothing. He had practised the motion before. This new clemency from the Inspector was something he didn't know how to deal with. The Inspector sighed. This might take a while. Neither one of the two men wanted to speak first, the Inspector because he had nothing more to say, and Van because he didn't know what to say.

Van hurt. He just ached. The detective slung the AK47 he was carrying round higher up on his shoulder. He hated waiting. He hated standing in the bitter cold outside waiting. Eventually, the door bot clicked, and Sophia stood there in front of him. She was wearing what looked to be some sort of green silk or velvet dressing gown. Van forced a smile, though he really didn't feel like it. Then, before she could offer, he pushed into the warm front room. Sophia looked over at him. The perfection, the lovely constant perfection, was there. And for once, he hated it. He wanted something out of place, something akin to how he thought, how he felt. Torn. Off-beat. Ill. Old. Injured. Instead, all he had was perfect darling Sophia. And he hated it. Even later, when he'd put down the AK, and taken off his suit, and even loosened his tie, and even later than that, between the kisses and the rolling between the sheets, Van hated it. He wanted simplicity. He wanted reassurance. He wanted normality. He wanted Ford back. For perhaps the first time in his life, Van missed something that wasn't that duck.


End file.
